UKC

Hi all,

I started climbing over a year ago and I'm enjoying it so far , especially that I managed to stay relatively injury free. I will be moving to a larger house and I am looking to add some indoor equipment and was looking at hangboards/ fingerboards.

Since I never used one (unfortunatelly my climbing center is small  and doesnt have one), i am looking for some advice. If you were to choose a hangboard, which one would it be and why ? Is there anything that you would add / change ?

I am interested to find out what would must be features a hang board should have ? Do you care for slopers, pinchers,jugs or prefer more pockets & crimps with different depths/ angles ?

Thanks!

I have a free standing setup with a Beastmaker 1000 on one side, and small and medium campus rungs on the other. Quite frankly apart from warming up I could get by pefectly well with just the campus rungs. 

(My campus rungs are metolius style solid wood. I have tried the Moon plywood ones but I find they get slippery very quickly)

I have a Beastmaker 2000.

I never use it as my homemade campus rungs are far more comfy, and let me have my hands at my prefered width.

Don't start doing hangs until your fingers and everything else they are connected to (!) are strong enough to cope. 

FWIW I have tried various hangboards in TCA and just prefer single rungs (I like the Beastmaker ones). For power endurance I prefer doing circuits on a bouldering wall (even a small one) but otherwise you can do the repeaters on your rungs (7 seconds work, 3 seconds rest). I prefer max hangs (building up to 8 seconds work, 2 mins 52 seconds rest) on a rung so that I am not getting assistance from pressing my fingers against the sides of a pocket like you can on a hangboard.

Some good advice here from Dave MacLeod  youtube.com/watch?v=VeKE5VH5-qg&. I also recommend his superb wee book 9 out of 10 Climbers Make the Same Mistakes.

HTH

Definitely use a wooden one, it's nicer to your hands and you don't need chalk. Looks also great in the living room.

Depends on how much you're willing to spend. I'm happy with my Antworks 2, and I didn't want to spend loads . It's quite minimal but has everything I need, slopers, jugs, pockets, pegs and crimps. More slopers can be added later, even.

With a bigger budget you obviously can get one that has more, more, more. If you really can make use of it as a beginner, though? Maybe spend less money now, than you have more to expand your training later on. First see if you need more campus rungs or something else. I decieded between the Antworks, Beastmaker and Kraxlboard range.

A Beastmaker 1000 would be a good investment and a nice hold balance. 

A cautious and steady approach to fingerboarding using good form and progressive, static loading is an excellent way to recruit finger strength in a controlled environment and therefore can play a role in preventing finger injuries in the future.

Thanks all for feedback much appreciated !